Cheats and Walkthroughs

Cheats and Walkthroughs

Previews

Screenshots

Cheats and Walkthroughs

To all of you PC lovers out there or those who love a good indie game, I present to you an essential list of free downloadable titles for your rig. That’s right. You can party all night long and never spend a cent. If you’re still clueless about what to get your sweetie this year, why don’t you load up his or her hard drive with some of the greatest games to ever grace a pixel? And if you are feeling forever alone this year, snuggle up to some of these games to get you through the long winter’s night because there’s nothing like playing with yourself.

No. Wait. I don’t mean it to sound like that.

The best thing about these games is seeing how other found their inspiration to create their own games from them. Don’t think of them as just games, but love letters to what makes gaming great and why everyone needs to have games in their lives. Who knows, you may just fall in love with games all over again.

We start things off with a game that’s traveled the globe all the way from Japan. Cave Story puts you in the little pixilated hat of a robot boy waking up in a cave filled with monsters and mysteries. As you come to find out, the red flowers growing in the area have started transforming the bunny inhabitants into crazy bunnies. As you begin to explore the surrounding lands, you start to learn about the red flowers and your reason for being there. Fast action and metroidvania-style exploration makes this an easy download for just about anyone with the bits to spare.

Welcome to the leader in “hardcore.” Dwarf Fortress makes make Minecraft look like a walk in the park. This game makes Skyrim look linear. If navigating a living world with soil erosion, organic environments, and something the size of and actual world would drive you insane; try traversing such as rich and colorful world in ASCII. Yes, it’s a bit like watching the Matrix code scroll in front of you. Instead of blonds, brunettes, and redheads; you’ll need to pick out dwarves, food, and enemies from the list of characters before you. Keep at it. There’s a reason why the game’s motto is “Losing is fun.”

Indiana Jones has nothing on this fedora-wearing explorer. Spelunky combines the best aspects of a platformer as well as the exploration of a rogue dungeon crawler. Every cave you enter fill with traps and treasures will be completely unique from the previous one. Not only will be able to find treasure, but you’ll find yourself facing some of the hardest areas. You’ll need your wits and your whip to make it out of here alive. Adventures will need to combine items, rescue damsels in distress, and find rare artifacts if they hope to make it out alive.

Actually, this is a series of games all made by the same person. You roam, explore, and try to survive the world around you and you pick up pieces of the story. Simple design leads to very deep mechanics, as you’ll need to remember where you’ve been and often, how to get back there in one piece. It’s a wonderful world you’ll want to explore and visit again and again.

Remember Super Meat Boy? This is his older brother. I Wanna Be The Guy is sadistic, plain and simple. The Marquis de Sade once wrote a poem about this game on the wall of his cell with his own feces. It was amazing. Simple graphics hide a game that will punish you from beginning to end. If it could, the game would probably punish you past the ending. Look for that in the next patch.

Imagine being a teacher and having the power to read your students’ email without them knowing about it. That’s the idea behind this interactive story where you get to experience both sides at once. You get to see the sorts of stories your students present to you while checking out the action behind the scenes at the same time. Funny, dramatic, and sometimes very personal; Don’t Take It Personally demonstrates one way games and narrative can finally work together.

You never had this much fun without dropping a few quarters. Super Crate Box pits you against an endless supply of enemies as you go after crates in this 2D world. You’re going to die, when is the only real question as every crate you touch give you a new weapon to try out. Everything from shotguns to rebounding disks will be a your disposal, just one at a time. Super Crate Box takes the best part of arcade and gives it to you without the hassle of sticky floors and rowdy teenagers.

Start your engines. Last year gave us one of the greatest driving games to hit the PC for the low cost of nothing. Nitronic Rush lets you take on courses ripped out of the world of Tron as you try to score big by doing tricks and exploring each of the different tracks. Even if you’re not a big racing fan, the intuitive controls and fun atmosphere will keep the pedal to the metal for some time to come.

Life is tough when you need to put food on the table, take care of the kids, and just happen to be a mollusk. Octodad puts you into the slightly wet suit of an octopus who’s trying to skip out of a romantic evening with his wife by collecting the necessary items from around the house to create a double. If she can’t figure out that you have a couple of extra arms than usual, creating a dummy stand-in shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Things get complicated when you can only alternate controls between your arms and legs. Play your part right by completing your human tasks and your family won’t suspect a thing. Keep messing up and you might see yourself on the wrong end of a boiling pot of water.

Combine the best parts of dungeon crawling along with a strategy game, and you’ll wind up with something very close to Desktop Dungeons. Running into danger with swords swinging and spells blasting is the easiest way to die in this game. Think before you strike; as you’ll need every ounce of experience, gold, and the favor of the God of your choice to make it through the final boss. Ten minutes will take you through a level, dead or alive. With as many classes and races available from the start, you’ll never play the same game twice or use the same strategy in order to survive. Like this game enough and order the paid version today.

Sure there’s a premium paid version of the game, but you wage war with no money down with this 2D MMO. It’s castle versus castle as you build, repair, and prepare for every attack. Sometimes the biggest gains come from the smallest battles as you try to collect resources in the middle of a war. The three main classes - knight, archer, and builder – will take you and your team to victory one block at a time. Structures crumble to the ground in real time as you lay siege with catapults and sheer force. If you enjoy the madness of an MMO but want a little more thought behind the slaughter, King Arthur’s Gold delivers and keeps giving you more of the good stuff with constant updates.

Did I leave your favorite free PC game off the list? Please show your game some love in the comment section below.